Published on Oct 13, 2016A full-scale test version of the Orion service module undergoes vibration tests on the world’s most powerful spacecraft shaker system at NASA Glenn’s Plum Brook Station. The tests are designed to ensure the service module can withstand the intense vibrations it will experience when it launches and travels into space aboard the powerful Space Launch System rocket. (no audio)

Published on Oct 13, 2016When NASA’s Orion returns to Earth after traveling more than 40,000 miles beyond the moon during its next mission and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, a team from the U.S. military will help secure Orion and safely return it back to land. U.S. Navy diver Beau Lontine and a team from the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and NASA practiced Orion recovery techniques in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, the facility where astronauts train for spacewalks. The evaluations help the team prepare for an upcoming series of tests off the Coast of San Diego in October where they’ll check out the hardware and operations they’ll use to secure Orion after its first test flight of Orion with the agency’s Space Launch System rocket in late 2018. The testing all helps pave the way for Orion flights with astronauts.

Published on Oct 20, 2016Inside the shrink wrap is the heat shield from Orion's first flight in space. After a series of water impact tests, the heat shield left NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida where it will be assessed for future needs.

Photo taken October 24, 2016 so a little dated, but posted for posterity.

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Tile blocks have been prefitted around the heat shield for the Orion crew module inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The heat shield is one of the most critical elements of Orion and protects it and the future astronauts inside from searing temperatures experienced during reentry through Earth's atmosphere when they return home. For Exploration Mission-1, the top layer of Orion's heat shield that is primarily responsible for helping the crew module endure reentry heat will be composed of approximately 180 blocks, which are made of an ablative material called Avcoat designed to wear away as it heats up. Orion is being prepared for its flight on the agency's Space Launch System for Exploration Mission-1 in late 2018. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and NASA's Journey to Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

Published on Dec 14, 2016NASA's David Elliott and a team of pilots and engineers who operate the agency's Super Guppy aircraft are responsible for transporting some of the biggest elements of spacecraft to locations around the country. The Super Guppy has played an important role carrying pieces of Orion, such as the primary structure of the crew module, to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for outfitting and processing in advance of its 2018 mission that will take the uncrewed spacecraft, launched atop the Space Launch System rocket, about 40,000 miles beyond the moon.

Published on Dec 21, 2016From the beginning of assembly work on the Orion crew module at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to testing a range of the spacecraft systems, engineers made headway in 2016 in advance of the spacecraft’s 2018 mission beyond the moon. Highlights include: crew module pressure vessel manufacturing; testing to ensure the safety of Orion and its crew upon splashdown in the ocean; testing of procedures to recover Orion after its missions; outfitting and assembly work on the crew module at Kennedy and on the European service module at Airbus Defence & Space in Germany; and service module testing at NASA Glenn's Plum Brook Station in Ohio.

OHB in Sweden is assembling, integrating and doing initial testing of the European Service Moudle Propulsion Qualification Model (PQM) that represents the propulsion system for testing purposes. It is much heavier than the final module as it will not be launched into space. It serves an important role in the development of the Orion spacecraft as it allows engineers to show that everything works as planned.

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The assembly was completed in January in Stockholm, Sweden and the model is packed up and ready for shipment to the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico (USA).

There it will be tested extensively including “hot-firing” where the auxiliary engines will be fired for real in tests ran by Airbus DS.

European Orion functional model arrives in USA for combined testingPosted on 20 Feb 2017 by laylan

Like modern aircraft with fly-by-wire technology, spacecraft depend on reliable electrical systems to calculate scenarios and command hardware to react for a safe and successful journey. For NASA’s Orion spacecraft that will be heading beyond the Moon and back, the avionics have an enormous amount of data to process and hardware to control.

ESA is supplying the European Service Module for Orion that provides propulsion, electrical power, water and thermal control as well as maintaining the oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere for the astronauts in the crew capsule. All these functions need to be finely controlled – there is little room for error in human spaceflight: the European Service Module avionics manages the module’s hardware and the data exchange services based on instructions from the Orion flight computers in the Crew Module that are designed and developed by NASA and its contractors.

Orion has 33 engines that need to fire at precise moments to stay on course. Propellant is pushed by helium to the spacecraft’s thrusters with computers calculating timing and fuel levels. The service module has 14 fuel and supply tanks that change the spacecraft’s characteristics as the liquids empty and slosh about during Orion’s mission – each change requires new calculations and adapting thruster firings.

Testing all scenarios virtually

A functional simulator includes the replica models of the service module’s electronic units, and hardware such as valves, sensors, motors, batteries and power generation that can be programmed to reproduce any condition encountered during the missions in space.

The simulator was constructed in Les Mureaux, France and will be used to test the electrical and functional design of the service module, reproducing mission scenarios and verifying that the module will react correctly to any unexpected events that could occur.

After testing in Les Mureaux at the Airbus Defense and Space site, the functional model was shipped to Denver, USA, where it will be connected to a complete Orion spacecraft functional test facility. The avionics, the crew module and the European service module will go through another round of even more complex testing to ensure the two systems work together as planned, running virtual scenarios over and over again to ensure the software copes with all possible conditions. Unlike on your phone or computer a quick internet-update to remove any bugs is not an option when travelling in space between Earth and the Moon.

The first Orion mission is planned for 2018 without passengers, but the second will include astronauts. The crew capsule computers will work with the service module’s avionics to keep a safe environment for the astronauts as well – reacting to sensors in the capsule as well as from the astronauts themselves.

“Together with the test article that was formally handed to NASA this month, this is the second part of the system to start testing complete Orion systems” says ESA’s Philippe Deloo. "The project is coming together quickly and it is immensely satisfying for the hundreds of people working on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to push forward to the next phases and milestones of space exploration.”

Orion Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS) drop test using the Parachute Test Vehicle at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, Dec. 2012.

Credits: NASA

NASA is inviting media to attend a test of the Orion spacecraft’s parachutes on Wednesday, March 8, at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Orion is scheduled for its second airdrop test, in a series of eight, to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights.

Media will have the opportunity to interview Orion engineers, see the model up close and view the test from the drop zone. To attend, media must contact Laura Rochon at [email protected] by 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 2.

During the test, an engineering model of the Orion spacecraft will be dropped from a C-17 aircraft flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet. This test will simulate a descent sequence astronauts might experience if they have to abort a mission after liftoff. The test sequence begins under simulated abort conditions when Orion is traveling at the relatively slow speed of about 130 mph, as compared to 310 mph for a normal end of mission Earth re-entry.

The team will focus on two primary aspects of system performance in this scenario: deployment of Orion’s two drogue parachutes at low speeds, and deployment of its three main parachutes in preparation for landing.

Orion’s parachutes are critical to the safe return of the spacecraft to Earth, whether during an abort sequence or at the end of a successful deep space mission. They help stabilize and slow the crew module to about 20 mph, enabling a safe splashdown in the ocean.

Orion is built to take astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before. The spacecraft will carry astronauts to space, provide emergency abort capabilities, sustain the crew during their mission and provide safe re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.

On Feb. 22, engineers successfully installed ESA’s European Service Module Propulsion Qualification Module (PQM) at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico that was delivered by Airbus – ESA’s prime contractor for the Service Module. The module will be equipped with a total of 21 engines to support NASA’s Orion spacecraft: one U.S. Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engine, eight auxiliary thrusters and 12 smaller thrusters produced by Airbus Safran Launchers in Germany. The all-steel PQM structure is used to test the propulsion systems on Orion, including “hot firing” of the OMS engine and thrusters.

Orion will travel more than 40,000 miles beyond the moon to test the spacecraft that will carry humans farther into the solar system than ever before. NASA will use the proving ground of space near the moon to establish the deep-space mission operations needed to for long-duration missions. These missions will incrementally decrease our reliance on the Earth for in-space operations and enable future missions on the journey to Mars.

In a lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, engineers simulated conditions that astronauts in space suits would experience when the Orion spacecraft is vibrating during launch atop the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket on its way to deep space destinations. A series of tests occurring this month at Johnson will help human factors engineers assess how well the crew can interact with the displays and controls they will use to monitor Orion’s systems and operate the spacecraft when necessary.

Test subjects wore modified advanced crew escape suits that are being developed for astronauts in Orion, and sat in the latest design of the seat atop the crew impact attenuation system. This was the first time this key hardware was brought together to evaluate how launch vibrations may impact the astronaut’s ability to view the displays and controls. While Orion’s late 2018 mission will be uncrewed, engineers are hard at work performing all the necessary evaluations to make sure the spacecraft is ready for crewed missions beginning as early as 2021.

Published on Mar 9, 2017An engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft was dropped from a C-17 aircraft, flying at an altitude of 25,000 feet, to test the spacecraft’s parachutes. This was its second airdrop test, in a series of eight, to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights. The test was performed at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, on 8 March 2017. Credit: NASANASA’s Orion spacecraft second airdrop testYuma Proving Ground, Arizona8 March 2017

On April 27, 2017, Orbital ATK successfully completed a test fire of the company’s attitude control motor (ACM) for NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle. The ACM will steer the capsule’s launch abort system and crew module away from the launch vehicle in the event of an emergency. The capsule, developed by Lockheed Martin, is expected to launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System for a test flight in 2018. Learn more about the ACM here: bit.ly/2q75Ce3